The Inanity of Happiness
by Melbourne Ardell
Summary: Luna copes with the aftermath of her mother's death and the grief it causes her.


It was three days after, and the sitting room was still a disaster. Whether as a testament to his wife, or simply because he didn't have the heart, Xenophilius Lovegood had not repaired a thing. Luna wondered if his magic had simply gone away. She remembered hearing that could happen in times of immense grief. She thought that was terrible-it was the end of your world, and the last good thing you have simply walks out the door too. Magic should be something to help you during the hardships of your life. It shouldn't abandon you.

Luna sat among the rubble, her knees tucked into her chest, listening to the printing press upstairs bang out the newest copy of _The Quibbler_. She was wrapped in her mother's favorite sweater; she had been wearing it during the accident.

As she had watched her mother experiment with new spells, she had begun shivering from the chilly air seeping through the cracked windows. Her mother had smiled at her, taken the long, colorful sweater off of her own shoulders and wrapped it around Luna.

She had watched in awe as golden lights danced around her mother's beautiful figure, illuminating her face. Soon silver lights joined them, dancing all around the room, landing on Luna's small nose and making her giggle and sneeze.

"What's this spell for, mama?"

Her mother had given her one of her radiant smiles. "Happiness. Not that fake happiness like cheering charms, or draughts of peace. Real, true happiness."

"There's such a thing?" Luna's eyes had widened in wonder.

"Of course there is, my little bunny rabbit," she said, running her fingers through Luna's long, scraggly hair and kissing the top of her head. "It's just hard to find sometimes."

The golden and silver lights merged, and created beautiful, pulsating amber ones that continued to float around, chasing away the evening's growing darkness from everything in the room.

As the amber lights grew brighter and brighter with the flicks of her mother's wand, Luna's heart did indeed seem to swell with happiness. Maybe it was the magic, or maybe it was just the extreme beauty of the moment.

The last moment of peace and happiness before chaos and destruction take hold with an iron grip.

The amber continued to glow brighter and the lights Luna had thought beautiful now seemed terrifying to her. They seemed to expand, wrapping the entire room in a blinding light, until Luna had to squeeze her eyes shut.

Everything was hot, and the ground seemed to tremble below her. She wasn't aware of what was happening, only that her entire world seemed to be crumbling. Peeking through her fingers, Luna saw the room shattering around them, as though it could not contain the happiness.

Luna's mother stood in the center of the storm of rock and debris, a look of petrified confusion on her face. Her eyes met Luna's, and she smiled at her daughter as though she gave her all the happiness in the world.

And suddenly, the light was drawn towards her, into her very heart. The room stopped tearing itself a part, and Luna's mother seemed to float in the air for a moment, the amber light emanating from her body, before her limp form dropped to the ground in a heap and didn't move again.

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><p>Luna felt tears sting her eyes again, as she remembered her father's face when he had sprinted downstairs and found Luna surrounded by rubble, her blonde hair coated in dust; the shock on his features when he had seen his wife motionless in the center; and the pain in his eyes as he understood what it was he was seeing.<p>

The girl burrowed her face in the sweater, letting the scratchy material soak up her tears.

"Luna?" She looked up at the sound of her father's voice, hastily rubbing the tears from her face.

"Yes, Daddy?"

He looked at her sadly for a moment, and then held out his hand. "Come upstairs. I have something for you, Love."

She placed her small hand in her father's and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet and led up to her bedroom. Sitting on her bed and twisting a lock of golden hair around her finger, she stared at her feet, determined to keep her eyes from wandering to the photo of her mother on her bedside table.

Xenophilius knelt down in front of her and pulled something out of his pocket, and gently placed it in Luna's hand.

She stared down at the butterbeer cork attached to a pale blue ribbon that sat on her palm. "Wasn't this mama's?"

"When she was your age, it was. When she first went to Hogwarts. It got worn down over the years, so the one you always saw her wearing was quite different."

As Luna looked at it, she noticed that the ribbon had some tears in it, and the cork had a few pieces missing, with dirt stains over it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. "I'm not Hogwarts age yet, though," she said sadly.

Her father took it from her hand and placed it around her neck. "In less than two years, you'll be getting your letter," he assured her. "It might seem like a while, but it will fly by." Scanning her up and down, a sad smile played across his face. "You look just like her, you know."

Late that night, Luna sat swaddled in her blankets, turning the cork over in her fingers. She lifted it over her head, and let it lie flat in her palms.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and tried not to think of the sadness she was drowning in, but rather the happiness she had always felt around her mother. That she had felt when looking at the amber lights, before everything went wrong.

As she watched, the cork began to glow, light shining out through the pores, as though there was an amber star in the center. Smiling, Luna dangled the string from her fingers, and watched as the cork turned, casting beautiful rays of light all around her room.

_Happiness is out there_, she assured herself, thinking of her mother's smile. "_Sometimes it's just hard to find._

Of all the magnificent creatures her parents had told her about, of the nargles, wrackspurts, heliopaths, and crumple-horned snorckacks, in that moment happiness seemed to Luna the most unlikely of them all.

But she would try. She would search as long as her eyes still had life left in them. And she would find happiness.

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><p><em><strong>Thanks for reading, everyone. Please let me know what you think! (I live for your feedback, Siriusly). 3<strong>_


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